


Bob's Not Gay (working title)

by KateMonster



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, The Used
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Denial, Friendship, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 17:13:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7722967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateMonster/pseuds/KateMonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Personal Bandom WIP Amnesty 2016: The College AU</p>
<p>College is a time of self-discovery, but Bob already knows who he is. He's solid, he's fine. And his roommate is nuts, but awesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bob's Not Gay (working title)

**Author's Note:**

> Right so. I love this fic. It makes me genuinely laugh. If I had it in me, I'd edit the fuck out of what I've got, and finish it. The approximately 8k that I'm about to show you needs a major wallop with the editing stick and I'm not just saying that. It's very obvious, while also somehow being too obtuse with the theme I was working with. As a writer looking back at a fic I started four years ago, there's a lot that I would've done differently. I would've tried to work with subtlety and yet also make Bob's interior life a little more nuanced. I feel like this fic has great tight Bob POV, but it's almost too tight, without complexity, like it's just skimming the surface of his interior life.
> 
> But I like it. It's funny, and I have no qualms saying that. I also love this stupid teenage Frank. Also, sophie_448 wrote the Pete/Mikey scene that takes place offstage and I adore it and I might make her post it. Warnings for flagrant comma abuse and runon sentences I planned to fix later.

Bob’s not totally sure how he ended up walking across campus at dusk for a Queers and Allies meeting. He’s straight, okay, not like, in an obnoxious, homophobic way, where he pops his collar and talks about tits all the time, but hey, Bob’s a big fan of tits. Just, you know, quietly. He thinks he wouldn’t like, mind being Allied with gay dudes like his roommate, who is, Bob has discovered in the four and a half days they’ve been living together, stark-raving bonkers, but pretty awesome. It’s just that he wants to be clear about being an Ally.

“Just to be clear, Gerard,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. His roommate rolls his eyes --again, he does that a lot, mostly when his phone buzzes for some reason-- and wraps his arm firmly around Bob’s, linking their elbows together.

“You’re an _ally_ , Bob, I know. I promised not to jump you in your sleep when I moved in.” He had, actually, at noon on move-in day with his little brother listening shamelessly and his mom making his bed. He’d spoken at great length and with hand motions, and a sort of hopefully disturbed grin, like he couldn’t believe he had to say all of this.

Bob had laughed and reached out to pound Gerard’s shoulder with a “cool, dude, I’m straight, so I’m totally not going to jump _you_.” The long, thin line of Mikey’s back had relaxed a little and he’d dropped Gerard’s box of Star Wars comics onto the bed with a tiny smile.

“Totally not what I’m worried about, dude,” Bob says easily and feels a grin hovering at the corners of his mouth. He pushes it down, making it just a slight curve, and chuckles. “Somehow, I don’t think recruitment is your thing.”

“So true,” Gerard says. “Okay, so, you’re worried about not hooking up with hot chicks because they think you might be gay, right?” 

“Mm,” Bob says, shrugging and scuffing his foot along the sidewalk. Late August in Jersey looks and feels a lot different from August in Chicago and he sort of wishes he had a hat. Not that it’s cold, because Bob knows from cold, okay, just, a hat would be nice. “I like girls.” He shrugs again. “They’re nice. I mean, crazy, but who says guys aren’t?”

“Don’t even worry,” Gerard says as he reaches out for the door of the Student Union. “I promise that people will believe you if you tell them you’re straight. Just _be honest_ , Bob,” he says earnestly as they reel a little from the blast of too-warm air. “Don’t make people assume.”

Bob nods thoughtfully and steps forward.

“Cool.”

~

Gerard’s a liar. Nobody believes him and it’s starting to be weird.

There’s a discussion entirely about his boots at the back of the mixer, where Gerard has completely abandoned him in favor of talking to this tiny guy with long hair and white athletic socks pulled up to his knees (what even is that, Bob’s straight but even he knows that’s weird, fashion-wise).

Apparently, Ashlee and her sister think that any man who wears boots like his has to be closeted. And they’re hot, both of them, even if Ashlee seems to have some kind of growth named Pete coming out of her neck who claims “gay above the waist” as a valid lifestyle choice. He has a really, really disturbing smile. Too many teeth. 

“Oh my god,” Bob says over Jessica’s latest theory. “Your teeth are creepy.” 

Pete laughs, which is even scarier and says “Your roommate has tiny freak teeth.” 

“Don’t talk about my roommate,” Bob says and punches Pete’s shoulder, kind of hard, and all of a sudden, they’re friends. 

Pete drags him away from the ladies, into a knot of guys talking about Les Paul and Bob’s shoulders drop from around his ears, because he can do music talk, for sure.

~

Three weeks later, still nobody believes him. Well, Gerard does, but Gerard had the misfortune to get distracted talking on his phone while unlocking their door and completely missed the tie around the doorknob. The look on his face still makes Bob laugh every time he thinks about it, which he does kind of a lot, because Gerard keeps bringing it up. 

“Naked tits, Bob,” he says sometimes, with a shudder, when they’re in the caf line or walking to their soul-destroying eight a.m. classes which are in the same building.

“You are required to look at naked tits, Gerard,” he always replies. “You’re a studio art major. You take life drawing.”

“Yeah, but those are not in my room. Those are not sweaty and all nipply and _heaving_ okay?” 

“They were heaving?” Bob asks proudly and grins.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Gerard says, rolling his eyes. “Yes, they were heaving, you are the master of hetero sex, that chick was a mess of putty in your hands and it was _gross_ , Bob.”

Drama queen.

“Drama queen.” Which is pretty much how all of their arguments end, and Gerard always grins at him with all of his tiny freak teeth showing and Bob can’t help but smile back.

Anyway, nobody believes him. Pete keeps begging to introduce him to somebody named Trick, because Trick would _love_ him, all big and muscley and blond, and really, Pete’s even more of a drama queen than Gerard is, and when they’re in the same room sometimes Bob has to run away.

And Bob’s pretty sure Patty Pat McPattcakes is the same as Trick, who has to be tiny Patrick, who Bob has actually already met, because he plays the marimba in practice room four, which is right next to six, which has the kit he likes best in it. And Bob’s pretty sure Patrick’s straight too, although that doesn’t seem to stop Pete.

Also, he thinks maybe if Patrick knew Pete was running around calling him “Trick” and “Patty McPatterson”, and “Lunchbox” he might shank him. With a shiv. Made from a drumstick. 

Ashlee goes along with the whole thing and just laughs when Pete talks about how Trick is made of magic. Bob doesn’t even know.

Bert definitely doesn’t believe him, especially after that time when Gerard got him back by totally failing to put the tie on the doorknob _at all_ , and really, Bob likes Bert, despite the knee-socks thing, but holy crap. 

Gerard swears up and down that it was an accident and they got distracted, and Bob has a hard time not believing Gerard when he makes that overly-earnest face, but Bert totally smirks at him and ruins the whole thing and then Bob has to shove him off the bed.

Mikey, who Bob has only met once, but talked on the phone to a billion and a half times because Gerard sometimes forgets his phone exists while he’s working on a project, definitely doesn’t believe him.

“You had your Big Gay Crisis, yet?” he asks in that bored “junior in high school” way one day while Gerard is actually using the shower.

“No,” Bob says easily. “Your brother’s in the shower.”

“Call the Times.” Mikey says and Bob laughs. Gerard keeps saying he’s freaked out by the odd non-communal, yet-still-in-the-same-room shower stalls in their hall bathroom, but Bob’s pretty sure he just likes marinating in his own filth. Which, whatever, Gerard’s filth manages to stay mostly on his side of the room, so whatever, except for the knitting stuff, which Bob thinks keeps trying to make a break for freedom.

“There’s a ball of yarn on my bed,” he says and Mikey huffs out some air, which for him is a full belly-laugh.

“Careful. It only takes one to start an avalanche.”

Bob knows exactly what he means, because of last week when Gee asked him to get something out of his closet. It was like a really warm, soft, rockslide. 

“Yeah. Anyway, no, still straight.”

“Kay.”

Bob likes Mikey, even if he’s of the opinion that Bob’s gay and just doesn’t know it yet.

“I’m not gay,” is the very first thing Brian Schecter says to Bob, and hey, that’s cool. Neither is Bob. Bob’s like, aware of Schecter, because he’s friends with Jepha, who’s kind of awesome, but he’s starting to be a little nervous about just how incestuous this whole “college friends” thing is getting, because Jepha (Bob’s friend) is friends with Bert (Bob’s roommate’s boyfriend) and now Gerard is cuddling with Jepha’s friend, and if this goes to hell, it’s going to turn into some Hatfields and McCoys shit.

“Neither am I,” Bob says and he clambers up onto Gerard’s lifted bed, pretty much because Brian’s trapped between Gerard and the wall and it kind of looks like Gerard might fall off.

“Psh,” Gerard snuffles as Bob jams his knees between Gee’s knees and his stomach. His eyes are kind of red, and Bob is deducing crying rather than drugs, because of the way his voice is all snuffly. Hell.

“You straight boys,” Gee sighs. “Always asserting,” which doesn’t really make sense, but Brian shrugs and squeezes him around the middle. Bob kind of awkwardly lays his hand on Gerard’s greasy hair and tries to smile gently. He thinks maybe it comes out more as a horrible grimace.

“I’m Brian,” Brian says. “Gerard’s Philosophy TA.”

“You cuddle all your students?” Bob asks with a little side-eye as he and Schecter shake hands awkwardly over Gerard’s stomach. Schecter just shrugs again.

“If they need it, maybe.” Bob nods and Gerard huffs under their hands.

“Okay, remember that I’m having the boyfriend crisis?” Bob was really hoping that wasn’t why Gerard was crying. He was hoping maybe he’d been watching Superman again or something or like, one of those nature documentaries where the baby whale calf dies. Gerard always cries at those. 

“It’s so cute how self-involved you are,” Schecter says, and that’s when Bob decides to like him.

~

Halfway through the semester, people are starting to believe him. Gerard’s made the heaving bosoms comment where other people can hear it, and Bert has given up on the threesome idea, which Bob’s pretty sure was a joke anyway, because not so much. Like Bob needs to get involved with Bert-and-Gerard’s Collective Drama more than he already is, even if he _were_ gay.

It chafes a little, however, how easily everybody believes Schecter. Like, Jepha sets him up with chicks (and Schecter’s totally not too proud to take performance-major cast-offs, although he won’t do sloppy seconds, whatever, and seriously, what about Artist Management pride, dude?) but when Bob starts dating this girl from his freshman comp class, everybody pretends to be completely shocked. 

“Not a lot of straight dudes go to Q&A meetings regularly, Bob,” Gerard says easily one day while he’s stirring eight fucktons of Splenda into his coffee in the caf. “Haven’t you noticed?” And, yeah, okay, maybe the only dudes Bob’s seen there after that first mixer have been, like, Bert and Pete, and Bert’s sort of regularly making out with Gerard, and who knows about Pete, but still.

“Their loss,” Bob grumbles. “The cookies rock.” 

“Uh-huh, sure,” Gerard says. “You’re just there for the cookies. It’s not at all the fact that you actually, like, believe in the shit we talk about.”

“I told you,” Bob says easily. “I’m an _ally_. Good allies don’t abandon the gay dudes just because the meetings stop being mixers and start being all about rights and marriage and whatever.”

“See?” Gerard says. “You’re awesome, Bob,” he smiles, earnest and wide, “you’re the best roommate ever, and I love you.”

Except clearly, Gerard is the worst roommate ever and he _hates_ Bob, because although there was proper warning about Mikey coming up to crash on their floor for a weekend, and Bob likes Mikey, for real, he does, nobody, no, _nobody_ warned him about Frank. 

“Bob!”

Bob’s chill. He’s a cool dude. He is relaxed and laid-back and sometimes Bert pretends to check his pulse. But nobody could be calm with a buck-ten of energetic teenager with a stupid scene haircut leaping from Gerard’s bed and onto his neck, yelling his name.

“You must be Bob!” the kid hollers, directly into Bob’s ear, and oh, hey, he’s managed to catch this kid with only minimal stumbling around, and he didn’t even realize he did it. “I heard you’re awesome!” 

“Bob, Frank,” Mikey says, barely looking up from his phone, and who the shit is he texting? His brother has his knees hooked over Mikey’s shoulders and Bob was under the impression that they texted each other _constantly_ “Frank, that’s Bob.”

“Hi,” Bob says, and finds himself subjected to an enthusiastic nuzzling, complete with a shoulder-bite, before Frank slithers out of his grip.

“Frank, don’t bite Bob,” Mikey says, like this happens all the time. “You wanna go to the show with us?” 

It takes Bob a second to realize Mikey’s addressing him, but the mildly-terrified look on Gerard’s face convinces him.

“Sure,” he says. “Gee, you’re coming.” He tries for a tone that brooks no argument, because Bert and Gee are sort of off-again right now, and if given the opportunity, Gerard will wallow around the room all weekend.

“You drive.”

And that’s that.

The best thing about Frank, though, is that he completely believes Bob when he says he’s straight. Like, actually, not in that pretend, raised-eyebrows way Mikey does. He still clings to him like a monkey who’s been given a new stuffed toy by the researchers who are injecting him with horrible diseases every day, and whoa, Bob has to stop listening to Pete’s meat-is-murder speeches or at least take away Gee’s 28 Days Later DVD.

He demands a piggy-back ride out to the freshman lot, which is sort of a long way, but it’s not like Bob can say no when the kid clambers onto his back without even waiting for an answer. And hey, Bob likes his “Homophobia is gay” shirt.

Or maybe the best thing about Frank is how, once they get to the venue, he grins the biggest possible grin that will fit on his tiny face and immediately dives into the pit without regard for his own safety.

But, no, the best thing about Frank is how, after Gee and Mikey stake out their spots on the wall and Bob sets himself up with his shoulder pressed into Gerard’s, keeping enough space around them that Gee won’t freak out about the crowd, he keeps bouncing out of the pit and over to make sure Mikey keeps that mildly-pleased look on his face. It makes Gerard grin his stupid tiny-freak-teeth grin and Bob likes that.

If he wasn’t straight, Bob would totally give Frank a big kiss when they’re walking back to the car, because when he’s walking backwards down the sidewalk and trips over his own feet and goes sprawling, Gerard laughs out loud. It’s that real, stupid, high-pitched giggle, and he throws his arm around Mikey and talks about Spider-man all the way back to the car. And on a weekend where Bert’s being kind of a dickwad, that makes Bob laugh too.

“Shut up,” Gerard says, turning a little in the passenger seat to waggle his hands in Bob’s face. “You like Frankie too, I can tell.”

“You shut up,” Bob says, tapping his hands on the steering wheel and glancing in the rear-view mirror. He catches a glimpse of Frank and Mikey, sprawled lazily all over his back seat, a tangle of limbs and tight pants and grins. “No, I don’t. He’s annoying.”

“Well, yeah, but he’s awesome.”

“Nah,” Bob says, but he’s smiling.

~

Bob wonders if other straight people have this much drama in their lives. College movies tell him ‘yes’, but he’s really not sure. Jepha’s still talking to him, barely, and Schecter made a point to say hey to him in the humanities building, but Bert looked like somebody’d shanked his puppy when Bob saw him scurrying out of his Wednesday night class and Quinn pretended not to even see him in the post office. He’s not sure what’s going on, but he can pretty much deduce “dramas!” and “lunchtime” and “Gerard and Bert” from the available evidence and past behavior. He wishes he couldn’t, but he can.

“What the fuck, Gerard?” Bob groans as soon as he sets his bag down. “I knew this whole ‘lunch by yourself on Wednesdays’ thing was going to fucking blow up. You’re not allowed to go places without me. Anymore.”

A snuffling sound emanates from the pile of blankets on Bob’s bed, and Bob rolls his eyes.

“Bert broke up with me.”

“Is that why you’re on my bed?” He drops onto his bed, pulling at the red fleece blanket until the back of Gerard’s head appears. His face is buried in Bob’s pillow. “Did you snot all over my pillow?” 

“I’ll wash it.” And by that he means he’ll wash it in the sink with antibacterial hand soap and hang it to dry in the laundry room. Bob doesn’t know why, but this is the pattern.

“So, Bert broke up with you again and that’s why you’re in my bed?” Bob asks, burying one hand in Gerard’s nasty-ass lank hair. He’s going for ‘concerned’ with his voice, but it kind of comes out ‘exasperated’.

“Your bed smells better. And I was sort of freaked out about falling out of mine.”

“You want me to take it off the lifts again?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay,” Bob toes his boots off and shifts his hips over. Gerard lifts one arm and turns his head on the pillow and Bob just sighs and worms one arm under Gerard’s shoulder.

“It’s for real this time,” Gee mumbles and Bob sighs. Again.

“That’s what you said last time.”

“We screamed at each other in the caf.”

“In public?” Bob huffs and even he’s not sure if it’s a laugh or not. “You?”

“I lost my fucking cool, Bob,” Gee groans and rubs his nose against Bob’s hoodie. Oh good, snot on that too. “He just pisses me off so bad.”

“Yeah,” Bob says. “That happens, with people we care about.”

“Yeah.”

~

What the fuck, for real. It’s like nearly everyone he knows is twelve years old. Except for Tiny Patrick from the music building --who Bob sometimes grabs a coffee with on Tuesdays now--all of his friends know each other. They know each other and they all blame somebody else for Bert and Gerard’s breakup.

As far as Bob can tell it was sort of mutual, in a, like, Bay of Pigs, mutually assured _destruction_ kind of way, but nobody ever listens to him, clearly. Everyone is subtly or overtly drawing lines and Not Talking to other people, and like, Gerard keeps telling Bob that there’s no sides here, nobody’s asking him to pick, but Bob knows that’s not true.

The Friends Divorce is here, and although Bob’s familiar with the concept, it still fucking sucks. Unlike when it happens with, like, older people, _not_ college freshman people, people who’ve been together longer than a month and a half, he has no other friends. It’s not like he’s really had time to make them, and it all just sort of shook out like that.

This is legitimately _everyone_ he knows except Tiny Patrick, and Pete Wentz seems to be hovering at the fringes rather than getting involved. But still, like _everyone_ and it’s not like he can run home to his mom like Gerard could, because his mom’s in fucking _Chicago_. Goddammit, when he checked “neutral” on nearly everything on his roommate request form, Bob was not actually expecting this.

He doesn’t remember if there was a box for “No kind of agoraphobic, artistic motherfuckers who draw vampires and inadvertently create Life Drama”. If there was, he’s not sure he would’ve checked it, because Gerard is, as previously mentioned, bonkers but awesome. He guesses he’s picked a side.

Oh, right, yeah, agoraphobic. Since when? The first month of the semester was all about Gerard dragging Bob places. Q&A meetings, freshman orientation mixer things, the art building, whatever, Gerard would make him go and then they would skirt the edge of whatever crowd was around, Gee mostly making hilarious asides under his breath and Bob trying not to crack up.

Gerard admitted, sometime in the third week, that he’d never been very social in high school and, hey, college is a time for reinvention, right? It worked, kind of, except when he and Bert were fighting. He’d wallow around the room for a weekend, but something would always make him snap out of it. Mikey would come up and drag him to a show, or Bob would see a flier for Take Back the Night or something, and boom, Gee would be up and about again.

Now? Bob doesn’t even know if Gerard’s going to classes anymore. He still makes it to his eight a.m. math requirement, if only because Bob drags him down to Pleasant, but whenever Bob comes home from classes, Gerard’s already in the room.

He’s _always_ in the room.

Bob likes his roommate, like, way more than he thinks is average for most freshmen, but dammit, nobody is built for this much quality Gerard time, except maybe Mikey. And Bob’s really, really tired of jerking off in the damn creepy not-actually-communal shower stalls but he thinks if he brought home a girl, Gee would just turn over and bury his head on the pillow, and that’s just a buzzkill. 

Bob is incredibly thankful for midterms just then. Gerard somehow drags himself out of his wallow just in time to make the deadlines on all of his assignments which is nothing short of a goddamn miracle. He spends a lot of time on the phone with Mikey, which isn’t new, and some time with the peer counselors, which is, but probably a good thing.

Of course, no two departments agree even slightly on when the middle of the semester actually is, so by the time Bob’s ready to die of sheer exhaustion, Gerard has _finished_ all of his portfolios and papers and tests and is slipping right back into a slightly muted version of his previous wallow.

There’s a little less crying, except when he’s watching Twin Peaks, but he’s still not really going anywhere except class, and Bob is trying to work, goddammit. And like, normally he’d be down with the blasting of Black Flag at three in the afternoon, especially since it makes a nice change of pace from all the Smiths, and there’s only so much Morrisey Bob's willing to take, even for Gerard, but, you know, work.

So, Bob ends up spending a truly unprecedented amount of time in the library, thanks to his freshman comp class that has suddenly developed a distressing research aspect. Or maybe it always had that aspect and Bob just hasn't been paying enough attention.

Anyway, he nearly loses it halfway through his fourth draft, and emails his TA in a fit of insanity, begging shamelessly for an extension. He gets an answer back in an hour, granting the extension graciously, if he comes in for a meeting about the paper.

Why didn’t Bob think of that?

He can count four different reasons to like his TA off the top of his head before the meeting and five more within five minutes sitting with him at his desk in the English department. The hair’s hilarious, to begin with. There’s a framed Led Zep postcard on the desk where other people might put their girlfriend and a guitar case stashed carefully behind his chair. Toro breaks down the best and worst parts of his paper quickly and walks him through some changes calmly and easily.

“Thanks, man,” Bob says, reaching out to shake Ray’s hand as he’s getting up. “Seriously.”

“It’s cool,” Ray says in that weird high voice, like he didn’t just absolutely and without question save Bob’s motherfucking life. Ray Toro is Bob’s goddamn hero.

~

Bob is _not_ fucking Ray Toro, no matter what Pete says. He’s not stalking him, either, which is Gerard’s working theory. Okay, so maybe two out of the last three days have included a quick stop at Ray’s desk, but it’s in Pleasant, and Bob has two classes there, so it’s on his way, like, everywhere. Plus, he’d found this video of Keith Moon from way back in the day, and like, really, John Bonham is great and all, but Ray is Totally Wrong about Led Zep. They’re cool if you like that kind of thing, but the Who are the greatest rock band of all time.

Tiny Patrick, who plays like, everything ever and has Significant Opinions on music even agrees with him over their coffee on Tuesday and starts making the case that they wrote the first punk song ever, so Bob totally has to get Toro’s opinion on that after comp the next day.

“If you’re having your Big Gay Crisis over your T.A.,” Mikey says when Bob picks up his phone late Wednesday night--since when does Mikey have his number?-- “I’m going to mock you for the next eternity. Talk about cliche.”

“Still straight,” Bob says, and hangs up. He blinks, goes to his call log and hits send.

“Still?”

“Yes. But what the hell, how do you know about Toro?”

“I see all, Bob. I see all.”

“Creepy,” Bob says to the silence. Goddamn Mikey hung up on him.

“What’s creepy?” The mound of rumpled blankets on Gerard’s bed stirs.

“Jesus Christ!” Bob jolts a good three inches out of his chair. “God, you are, fuck. So is your brother.”

“Yeah,” Gerard sighs and flips his red blanket off his face. “It’s kind of hereditary.”

“You’re awake?” Gerard gives him these crumpled eyebrows, like, “duh”, and Bob laughs, just a little. “Want to see what’s on the History channel?” Bob absolutely, positively cannot take one more word of City of God. Watching the History channel is _like_ doing his Euro Survey homework, right? Gerard glances at the clock, shrugs and sits up.

“This late it’s all alien abductions and Illuminati conspiracies,” he says.

“Yeah,” Bob says, making his own ‘duh’ eyebrows as he relocates to his bed and digs around for the remote. “It’s kind of awesome.”

Gerard considers for a second, then tumbles out of his bed, tugging his blanket with him and wrapping it around himself. His hair looks like it might be considering a siege on his eyebrows and he has pillow creases across his cheek. He drops onto Bob’s bed and pulls his feet up, staring at Bob like ‘make room, motherfucker’, and then Bob has to shove him.

“I bet nobody’s using the weird non-communal showers right now, Gee,” he says.

“I don’t want to miss the Greys, Bob,” Gerard replies, completely serious.

“I’ll fill you in on the autopsy. I promise.”

“But I’m warm. I’m a burrito, Bob!” Gerard tries for his best pitiful face, which is pretty sad, but holy god, the stench.

“My bed, my rules, dude.” Bob wrinkles his nose exaggeratedly. “You reek like a week’s worth of despair.”

“Buh,” Gerard says, his eyes wide, and then he bursts into his stupid startled donkey laugh, head tipped back until Bob thinks he might fall off the bed. “Week’s--ha, ha-- what?”

“No, really. Go. Look,” Bob points to the TV. “This one’s almost over. I bet you can finish before ‘UFO Diaries’.”

Gerard’s still chuckling when he shuffles off to the showers with his shampoo. Bob counts that as a win.

~

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you know if anybody’s having a party on Halloween?” Gerard repeats patiently.

Bob blinks.

“Gerard,” he says, scratching at his chin. Maybe a beard wasn’t a great idea. “You hate parties.”

“I do not!” Gerard says indignantly.

“No, yeah, you do. You always end up in a corner talking to one person for an hour and then you leave.”

“Well, parties are boring when you don’t drink.” Gerard sighs. “But, no, not for me. See, Frank’s birthday is also Halloween,”

And that’s where Bob completely loses the thread of the conversation.

~

“Listen, I need to ask you a favor.”

“Does it involve effort on my part?” Tiny Patrick asks over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Not really,” Bob says and scratches his face. “It’s kind of inexplicable, though, so you’re going to have to trust me.”

“I hate it when people say I have to trust them,” Patrick sighs. “But at least it’s you. I’m pretty sure there’s not going to be a bunny suit involved.”

“Uh, no.” It’s possible that Patrick’s life is even weirder than Bob had previously suspected. “I mean, it’s about Halloween, so maybe, but it’s not, like, essential.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, leaning back in his cracked vinyl seat. There’s a Starbucks on campus too, but Bob and Patrick both really prefer the weird coffee bar in the corner of the Union. Not only because it’s closer to the music building. “Ask me.”

“I need a party.”

Patrick blinks back at him.

“That _is_ inexplicable. You want me to throw a party just for you, Bob? Because --”

“No,” Bob interrupts. “I just need to find a Halloween party. One that’s already happening is fine. It’s for Gerard.”

“This keeps getting more and more confusing.” Why is it that when Bob tries to explain his life to an actual sane person, it sounds even more nuts than it is? It doesn’t feel nuts while he’s living it. It doesn’t always make complete sense, but it’s not until he’s trying to explain his roommate to Ray Toro or Patrick that he feels like Alice living with the Mad Hatter.

“I know,” Bob sighs. “Believe me, if I try to explain, it’s only going to get worse.”

“Bob,” Patrick says, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “My best friend is Pete Wentz. Fucking try me.”

“Okay,” he says and takes a deep breath. “Gerard’s little brother’s best friend’s birthday is Halloween. He wants to go to a college party for his birthday. It’s the only thing he wants, and, apparently, when Frank wants something, it happens. I can personally vouch for the fact that he’s an irritating little shit, and Gerard says that his birthday is like, a fucking national holiday in their little group, and Gerard doesn’t really know how to find parties so he asked me.” Bob takes another breath and Patrick opens his mouth, but Bob keeps talking. “And, like, I realize that I’m more socially functional than Gerard, but it’s not like anybody I know who would conceivably be throwing a party is even talking to me --and I made the mistake of _saying_ that to Gerard and had to listen to fourteen separate apologies, like it’s his fault that drama went down or whatever, by the way--”

“Pete’s talking to you,” Patrick interrupts. “Pete loves you. You’re not scared of him.”

“Well, he’s teeny,” Bob says, and then he feels his brow furrow without his permission. “Are you saying Pete’s throwing a Halloween party?”

“No,” Patrick says. “Pete lives in the dorms like every single other person I know. But apparently _he_ knows people who live off-campus. I don’t ask. He makes me go. You should come too, and bring other people who don’t call me Lunchbox.” 

“Why is he your best friend?” Bob asks suddenly. “He’s a maniac.”

“He showed up one day and wouldn’t leave,” Patrick says, waving one hand. “It doesn’t matter, what matters is, thank god, bring me sane people, Bob Bryar.”

Bob thinks about that for a second. He thinks about Frank’s holey jeans and manic grin and Gerard’s Opinions On Star Wars and Mikey’s disdainful calm.

“Is it okay if they’re only marginally sane?” he asks.

“It’s better than my friends.”

“Right.” Bob says. “In the interest of full disclosure, Gerard’s little brother is seventeen.”

“Whatever,” Patrick says. “Underage drinking is not my problem.”

“That’s what Gerard said!” Bob says, throwing up his hands. “I feel like maybe it is, if we’re the ones getting them into the party, where there’s a keg and probably hunch punch, and did I mention this is Frank’s _sixteenth_ birthday, and he wants to come up here to drink himself into a stupor? That can’t be good.”

“He’s not coming up here to drink, Bob,” Patrick says gently. “He’s hoping to hook up with college girls.”

“Oh,” Bob says. “You think?”

“That’s what college parties are _for_ ,” Patrick says.

“Well, I don’t go to a lot of parties,” Bob says, crossing his arms over his chest and shrugging.

He ponders that, rolls it around in his head. It collides with “Mikey’s seventeen” and “Pete Wentz is going to be there” and “he showed up one day and wouldn’t leave”, and then a synapse connects and Bob groans.

“I’m going to have to ask another favor.”

“This is the most you’ve ever, ever talked about anything that wasn’t drumming-related.” Patrick says. “Keep going, you’re on a roll.”

“Could you maybe,” Bob sighs. “Could you keep Pete occupied?”

“Absolutely not,” Patrick says firmly.

“Come on, man, I’m concerned--”

“No, listen,” Patrick says. “I’m not refusing, it’s just impossible. I will absolutely not be able to keep Pete from doing his rounds at this party. Parties are for hooking up, Bob. And he’s not going to be hooking up with me. Ever.”

Bob nods. He can accept that. And really, one favor a day is all he can ask from the one guy who doesn’t pick up threads of conversation from hours ago or ask him about his Big Gay Crisis or demand to be carried everywhere.

He’ll just have to keep an eye on Mikey. Because he’s a little afraid of the idea of Mikeyway’s unassailable calm meeting Pete’s irrepressible energy and crazy ideas. They might actually destroy the world.

He’s just going to keep an eye on the kid. Gerard will help.

~

Gerard is not a lot of help.

“I just want to go on record as _hating_ this plan,” he says, like that’s going to deter Bob.

Bob has Patrick on the phone even though he keeps saying “I’m almost there, Bryar, oh my god, you have to come down and let me in anyway, hang up,” and shit like that but, no, this is _essential_.

“I can’t believe you’re not onboard, Gee,” he says, holding the phone away from his ear and squinting at it. Goddammit, why do people hang up on him?

“I’m here, Jesus, come let me in,” Patrick says when Bob calls him again.

“You’re being neurotic, Bob, for fuck’s sake.” Gerard says when Bob pulls Patrick through their open door, coat still on and shaking his head. Bob stares at Gerard, sprawled all over his no-longer-on-lifts bed, hands behind his head like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Like his seventeen year old little brother is not actually going to be in the same room as Pete Wentz.

“What the fuck?” Bob says, because really, that’s the only response possible when _Gerard Way_ tells you you’re being neurotic. 

“He isn’t, actually,” Patrick sighs as he takes his scarf off. “Pete’s great but he’s a maniac.”

“I know,” Gee says. “I’m aware of Pete Wentz. But you guys,” he sits up, long fingers tangled in his lap. “Mikey’s good. He’s okay, really. Mikey is an extremely capable person.” Bob collapses onto his bed and waves vaguely for Patrick to sit in his desk chair, which is swivelly and awesome.

“Mikey is _seventeen_ ,” he replies. “And like, I realize that he’s probably prepared for needy and emotionally fucked, no offense—”

“None taken,” Gee says, like punctuation, like it doesn’t matter.

“But holy god, _Pete_.” Bob thumbs up a picture of himself, Gerard and Mikey on his phone, one Frank had taken at the show before midterms. Gerard is grinning, wide and real and Bob likes the picture, even though he doesn’t like pictures of himself. He points out Mikey, who looks as blank-faced scene kid as ever, except for the turn of his lips at the corners, where his smile lives. Patrick blinks, scowls and hisses air through his teeth.

“Uh, shit,” Patrick offers helpfully. “Well, I’ll say that he’s Pete’s type. And, okay, if you’re really this worried, I can probably try to keep him uh, distracted as long as I can.”

“Would you really?” Bob says hopefully. He knows this is weird. If Gerard’s not concerned, he probably shouldn’t be. But Bob’s pretty much of the opinion that Gerard lives his life being minutely obsessed with things that don’t matter and breezily unconcerned with the things that do. It’s just that he thinks maybe the Ways need somebody looking after them. It’s just that Mikeyway is unflappable and awesome and he just doesn’t want to see Pete Wentz ruffle his feathers. That’s not unreasonable.

“I’m not saying it’ll work for long,” Patrick says, holding up both hands. “Or at all. But I’ll give it a shot.”

“Seriously,” Gerard says. “This is completely unnecessary. Mikey’s good at parties.”

Bob blinks at him.

“Really?”

“Mikey’s a social fucking butterfly,” Gerard says, smiling big and wide, like he never does when he lies because he’s _so bad_ at lying. Especially about important shit like “I’m okay” and “I don’t even want one, it’s cool.”

Maybe Bob doesn’t have that much to worry about. He’s still glad Patrick’s on his side.

~

Gerard hates everything, Bob can tell. There _is_ a keg, and also hunch punch and a billion and a half people crammed into this tiny townhouse that Bob thinks maybe belongs to Matt Cortez, but he isn’t sure. It could be Adam, maybe. Anyway, Pete assured him that nobody who isn’t currently talking to him --still-- would be there, and so far he’s been right.

Bob hasn’t even seen anyone he knows except the Way brothers since Frank slithered off of him and headed straight into the living room-slash-dance floor with his hips twitching. This party is like everything Gerard hates, all bundled up and presented with a badly-tied bow. He probably feels like shit.

He _looks_ awesome. Completely awesome. Who knew corn syrup could make such convincing fake blood? 

Bob isn’t much for costumes himself, but he let Gee give him a nasty-realistic rope burn around his neck and powder up his face, so he looks pretty dead. Nothing like Gee, though, who’s wearing the rumpled remains of a tattered black suit and splatters of blood up his arms and on his face, dripping down his chin. He looks like he dug himself out of his own grave and then feasted on the flesh of the living.

“Oh my god,” he says, loud and Jersey, over the music. “What the shit, don’t these people know what Halloween is about? I see a construction worker, two Marines and a mailman. It’s like a really low-budget Village People.”

“Not even remotely scary,” Bob agrees. Mikey just snorts.

Before long, Bob manages to park them on a sofa and gives Gerard a stern look.

“I’m going to go get a beer,” he says.

“You can bring it back with you,” Gee says, like that’s going to happen. “It’s cool.”

“Uh-huh,” Bob says and then “Look after him.” He carefully doesn’t address either of them, leaves it ambiguous, and he can _feel_ them both rolling their eyes as he wanders towards the kitchen.

He runs in to Schecter by the keg.

“Hey,” Brian says, “You have a beard now.”

“You’re talking to me?” Bob asks as he pays for a red Solo cup.

“Totally.”

Bob nods and leans his ass against the counter next to Brian’s. “Cool,” he says and Brian nods back.

“Why would I not be talking to you?” Brian asks after a moment and he sounds genuinely confused. Bob blinks.

“Uh,” he says. “Because of the--” he gestures, trying to convey “hideousness with our mutual friends” without actually saying it out loud. He probably picked that up from Gerard, and it doesn’t seem to be working, so he shrugs.

“The Bert thing?” Brian asks, thank god.

“Yeah, that.”

“That’s stupid.”

And, yeah, apparently it is, because Brian’s actually a pretty cool dude when you get him talking. Bob’s Solo cup is empty before he’s actually done telling Schecter about his epic quest to keep Mikey Way out of Pete Wentz’s path --which Brian totally does not think he is crazy for doing, thank you very much--, but he slaps Brian on the shoulder anyway and makes his way back to where he’d left the Ways.

There’s only one of them still there, and it’s not Mikey. This is a disaster. Not that it would be better if Gerard had disappeared, but whatever.

In Mikey’s place, on the middle cushion of the couch, there’s a girl in a pink prom dress, getting fake blood all over the upholstery. They look like an unusually animated suicide pact. 

“Hi,” Bob says, jerking his head to one side. Gerard scoots over automatically, making room for Bob on his other side, and he grins as Bob sits.

“Bob, this is Victoria,” he says. “She’s dressed as Carrie!”

“I’m sure you approve,” Bob says, trying not to laugh. He catches eyes with Victoria and she smiles back at him, but glances back to Gerard pretty quickly. “Gee, where’s Mikey?”

“Oh, he said he was going to get a smoke.” Gerard waves a hand unconcernedly.

“How ‘bout Frank?”

“Last I saw, he was grinding with my TA friend,” Victoria says. “I would be concerned, except that he did tell Gabe that he’s straight ahead of time.”

“Wait,” Bob blinks. “Frankie’s straight?”

“Uh-huh,” Gerard says, “Anyway, I can’t believe you haven’t read _Carrie_ , Victoria, it’s so much better than the movie.”

“No, it isn’t.” Bob says, and Gerard’s turning to disagree, but Victoria reaches out to touch his arm, then his shoulder, and oh god, Bob’s trying not to laugh again.

“Sorry,” she says, “I was dripping on you.” Her smile is sweet, yet predatory and shit, he’s actually going to burst out in insane laughter if something doesn’t happen soon. Bob lays his forehead against Gee’s shoulder and shakes, refusing to acknowledge that this _incredibly hot_ chick is hitting on his roommate, and Gee is not even _aware_.

“You okay, Bob?” He feels Gerard’s hand come up to rest on his shoulder and he shakes his head, still shaking with silent laughter. Gerard grabs Bob’s hand with his free one, and asks, “How many did you _have_? You were kind of gone a long time. Are you gonna puke?” If Bob looks up, Gerard is going to be wearing that super-earnest expression, and then he actually is going to laugh right in his best friend’s face. He’s going to have to look at Victoria. Hardship.

When he does, Victoria’s smile has gone indulgent and she nods slightly.

“Well,” she says, standing. “Nice talking to you boys. I’m going to go make sure Gabe hasn’t kidnapped your friend yet.”

“Is that a legitimate concern?” Bob asks her retreating back, but there’s no answer. So, now the hot chick is actually aware that Gerard’s gay...but she thinks he is too. There should be membership cards. It’s not any less funny, though.

Gerard actually is wearing that expression when Bob finally looks him in the eye, but at least he manages not to laugh.

“You’re not going to puke, are you?” Gerard asks, really, really concerned, and it’s so cute Bob does laugh, just a little.

“No, I only had one. I was trying not to laugh in her face.”

“What?” Gerard asks, and god, here comes another laugh, longer and right from his diaphragm. When he finally gets himself under control enough to speak, Gerard no longer looks quite so worried.

“She was totally flirting with you, dude!” Bob says, and he can hear his own disbelief. Not, like, that he can’t believe someone would flirt with Gerard, because, like, yeah. Whatever, he gets that, just, the situation. Gerard just looks confused again.

“Nu-uh!” he says. “We were talking about our costumes!”

“Sure,” Bob says, still chuckling --it’s not a giggle, Gerard giggles and so does Frank, but Bob and Mikey chuckle, okay?-- Oh, shit. “How long has Mikey been smoking?”

“You are so obsessed, god, Bob!” And ta-da, Gerard’s completely distracted from the hot girl who was flirting with him. Yup, gay. “You know, Mikey is an adult person who can make his own decisions.”

“No, Gerard,” Bob says calmly. “He’s _seventeen_.”

“And you’re eighteen, and I’m nineteen!” Gerard says, nearly clocking Bob in the nose when he waves a hand to help make his point. “So what? That doesn’t mean that Mikey isn’t the agent of his own destiny!”

“Hey,” Frank’s surprisingly deep voice interrupts, and he’s standing, looking down at them for the first time in, ever. There’s a mile-wide grin stretching his cheeks and his hair looks absolutely nothing like it did when they’d arrived. His orange “It’s my motherfucking birthday” t-shirt is inside out. “I didn’t think a dude that skinny could hold me up like that.”

Bob and Gerard both stare up at him uncomprehendingly.

“Where’s Mikey?” Frank asks and Bob just buries his head in his hands.

They do find Mikey eventually. _His_ hair is still perfect and all of his clothes are still on, although Bob thinks the clothes are a better indicator than the hair. Mikey’s hair probably wouldn’t move in a category five hurricane. He’s sprawled on the ratty patio furniture out back, his phone in his hand and a cigarette hanging from his lower lip.

“Hey,” he says, and Frank lays a smacker of a kiss right on top of Mikey’s head.

“I’m gonna go back to the party, now that I know you’re not dead, Mikeyway,” he says.

“Not dead. Have fun,” Mikey says with a smile. Not just a little tip of his lips, but a full-out, real smile. Bob narrows his eyes. He hasn’t seen Pete at all. All night. He’d originally thought this was a good thing.

“You were gone a while,” he says and Mikey just shrugs.

“Did you make out with any dudes while I was gone?” Mikey asks. “Did I miss the drunken experimentation? I don’t want to miss that.”

“Mikey, at some point it stops being funny,” Gerard says, sounding exasperated.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“I was just like, defending your personhood, you know,” Gerard says, shoving Mikey’s feet off the weird patio sofa. Is there a better name for a sofa that goes outside?

“He was,” Bob says.

“Thanks.” Mikey shoves his Converse into Gerard’s thigh, and Gee just sighs.

They pretty much spend the rest of the evening out there. Schecter drops by once or twice to say hey and immediately deduces that Mikey is the little brother. Gerard and Mikey smoke a billion and a half cigarettes between them, but they share when Bob’s pack runs out so that’s cool. Adam Lazarra even brings Bob a beer, and it doesn’t turn into a black hole of suck. Gee doesn’t even make a sad face, or look pained and he cracks a few jokes.

It’s surprisingly okay.

When Frank tumbles through the back door looking even more disheveled than he did previously, it’s one in the morning. He collapses onto Bob’s lap without warning and Bob huffs out a laugh.

“Good birthday?” he asks, shaking Frank’s drooping shoulder.

“Great,” Frank mumbles and tucks his head into Bob’s neck. “Gee says you found the party, so thanks, like, a lot, dude. Think I’m done, though.”

“Okay,” Bob heaves them both to their feet and then turns to let Frank clamber up onto his back. “Let’s go, Ways.”

They leave through the back gate, and as they stumble tiredly --in Bob’s case stopping to shift Frank higher on his back a few times -- back to the dorms, both of the brothers are smiling.

 

~

Gerard sleeps late on Sunday. It’s understandable, but Bob doesn’t really feel much like doing anything with his morning when he wakes up at ten, and he kind of hates feeling like he has to be quiet in his own living space. He pops on his headphones and aimlessly prods his English reading, if only so he can say he did it if Toro asks, but he can’t seem to concentrate on it for more than three minutes at a time.

He has a message from Frank on his Facebook wall, thanking him again for finding the party, so he clicks listlessly through, reading Frank’s “happy birthday!!” wall messages and checking out the new pictures. There are one or two of Frank dancing with a guy nearly twice his height, head tipped back and eyes closed. The guy’s wearing a purple Member’s Only jacket, has his hands clamped firmly around Frank’s hips, and has to be Gabe.

Bob blinks, and then clicks over to Mikey’s profile, and then he’s in a Facebook loop. It’s an hour later when he pulls himself away. Fucking Farmville.

“Do we say ‘happy’ All Soul’s Day?” Bob jolts and whips his head around. Gerard’s voice isn’t even sleep-scratchy, so he’s just been lying around with his blanket over his head for god knows how long.

“You have to stop that. Get up before you speak or something, I swear to god.” Gerard sits up and looks at his stormtrooper helmet alarm clock, which isn’t even remotely correct. Bob checks the time in the corner of his monitor. “It’s eleven thirty. Brunch?”

“Totally.” Gerard grins at him as Bob shoves his feet into shoes indiscriminately and Bob has to smile back. “Can I borrow a hoodie?”

“We’ll get quarters on the way back,” Bob sighs, but he’s still smiling a little when he hands over a sweatshirt.

“I don’t need to do laundry,” Gerard says, standing and shoving his arms into it. He’s still wearing his jeans from last night. “I just like your hoodies.”

“You haven’t done laundry since midterms, dude.” Gerard shrugs, and slips his stupid turtle slippers onto his feet.

“Good enough,” he says. “We can get quarters if you need them.”

“Thanks,” Bob says, scrunching his eyebrows and grabbing his keys. Gerard’s a giver. “Let’s go.”

“Hey,” Gerard says suddenly as they shuffle towards the stairs. “Did I make up the part where Frankie made out with a guy last night?”

**Author's Note:**

> I cut the last scene I had because I was working on it when we got the break-up tweet. Like. Literally that day. I abandoned it in the middle and dropped this fandom entirely. I'm glad I'm able to enjoy this fandom again, but that scene will never ever see the light of day. For one thing it's very OOC for Gabe (who makes his first on-screen appearance), and also it's poorly-written. I write in waves and it was on first draft. Suffice to say, Bob confronts Gabe in front of Ray for what he thinks is taking advantage of Teenage Frankie.
> 
> Bob's very protective of his friends.
> 
> In case you were wondering the themes of self-acceptance and allowing others to make their own decisions and mistakes were mostly furthered by Bob going home to Chicago for Thanksgiving and Christmas, coming back to Jersey to discover that everyone was fine without him and then smushing his face with Gerard's. The two of them don't find out Mikey and Pete have been texting and e-mailing until Spring Break, but Frank knew all along. Ta-dah! *jazz hands*


End file.
